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An action plan for ‘Generation Austerity’

The government is investigating claims that younger workers will be in a far worse position financially than the baby boomersGetty Images

MPs on the Work and Pensions committee have launched an inquiry into “intergenerational fairness”, investigating why today’s young people are likely to end up poorer, not richer, than their parents.

A toxic combination of factors, including stagnant wages, rocketing house prices and heavy student debts have led experts to coin a new term for financially strained young people — adults born from the early Eighties, normally known as Generation Y, have become Generation Austerity.

Last October, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said that young people are suffering the “worst economic prospects for several generations”. While pensioners’ average incomes are outpacing those of working households for the first time, a new flat-rate state pension means three-quarters of 24-year-olds will be worse off than they would…